7. "This was their finest hour"

Winston Churchill

A week before Winston Churchill addressed the House of Commons on June 18, 1940, and just a weak after Churchill's "never surrender" speech, the French government had abandoned Paris. The Battle of France was over. The Battle of Britain was about to begin. Openly challenging Hitler to "break us in this island or lose the war," the indomitable Churchill unleashed the most glorious line he ever wrote: "Let us, therefore, brace ourselves to our duties and so bear ourselves that, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say 'This was their finest hour.'”